The head of the Shin Bet security service did not give Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu a truthful assessment in 1996 about whether the Western Wall tunnels should be opened to tourists, former Shin Bet Deputy Director Israel Hasson claimed in an interview to the Channel 2 news magazine "Ulpan Shishi." The decision to open the tunnels, a network of underground spaces and passageways dating from different historical periods that run alongside the Western Wall below the Muslim Quarter of the Old City, sparked a wave of Palestinian riots in which 17 IDF soldiers and 100 Palestinian protesters were killed. Hasson, who in 1996 was in charge of the Jerusalem area for the Shin Bet, said he believed the agency, then headed by Ami Ayalon, had recommended against opening the tunnels at that time, but the political echelon had chosen to proceed. In later years, Hasson said, he was told by the prime minister's military attache, Maj. Gen. (res) Zeev Livne, that Ayalon had spoken to Netanyahu without Livne's knowledge and had recommended that the tunnels be opened, despite existing tensions. Sources close to the prime minister said Ayalon had told Netanyahu two weeks before the opening that "there's no problem. We need to hurry, because I've been saying we should do it for a long time." Hasson told Channel 2 that Ayalon had not informed him, as the Shin Bet official in charge of the Jerusalem district, of that assessment or brought it to the Shin Bet for discussion, preferring to go directly to the prime minister. Ayalon issued a written response to Hasson's claims, stating: "My position was that it was possible to open the Western Wall tunnels only if certain conditions prevailed."
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20 years on, new claims emerge about Western Wall riots
Former Shin Bet deputy head Israel Hasson claims that in 1996 Shin Bet head Ami Ayalon urged Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to open Western Wall tunnels, despite tensions • Ayalon responds: I said tunnels should be opened only in certain conditions.